Well, its been about 4 weeks since Destiny 2: Lightfall released. With the raid out, some secret content figured out, and the new weapons and armor pieces found and tested, its time to answer the question the Destiny community seems to ask themselves every day. Is it good? Around 150 hours later, 4 raid completions under my belt, and 2 out of my 3 Guardians at the leveling cap, me and GameDrudge think we can answer that question. This is going to be pulling some stuff from my First Impressions article. Give that a read if you haven’t already here and come back here. Alright, I think we’re all set! Let’s dive into my Destiny 2: Lightfall Review.
Destiny 2: Lightfall Review- Final Say on Story/Campaign
Alright, lets get this part out of the way quickly since I’ve already kind of said my peace on it in the first impressions. My feelings on Lightfall’s story mode remains pretty much unchanged, as in I like the gameplay of it, but the story is a big letdown. If anything, I feel even worse about the story after playing around with some of the post-game content and, strangely, looking at some Bungie interviews on Twitter. The big Macguffin in Lightfall was The Veil. Its always “We have to get The Veil”, “We have to stop them from using The Veil”, “We have to download pirated movies using The Veil”, The Veil, The Veil. The big joke was that everyone seemed to know what The Veil was… except the player.
So when I was wandering around Neomuna after beating the campaign and a radio broadcast comes on that… tries? to explain The Veil, and Bungie in an interview comes out and explains it as a “physical manifestation of incomprehensible cosmic energy.” and a “Window into the mind and memory of the universe”. It just kind of sounds like Bungie saying “Yeah we don’t know what this thing is either”. If I’m getting possibly important story bits from random radio broadcasts and Twitter threads, something might be wrong.
My thoughts on all the characters, gameplay and other story additions is about the same. I expect we’ll get some stuff to flesh out what we got later, but what we got right now is still very disappointing. Bungie has fumbled the proverbial bag with the story of Destiny before, but to lose it right now hurts especially bad in my opinion.
Destiny 2: Lightfall Review-Gameplay Additions/Changes
Again, some of this is going to be from my First Impressions, specifically the weapons since, as always with Destiny releases, they feel excellent. Given some time to really find some good perk rolls, and find out what works for different builds has been very fun. Almost all of the new weapons have a deserved place in the sandbox. I do have a few complaints though. Bungie decided that the Mod system for armor needed an overhaul to make it more streamlined and user-friendly. However, I think they might’ve taken it a bit too far with the mods, as they feel very simplified now. The plus side of this is that its way easier to make endgame builds! The downside is that the variety and complicated side of buildcrafting is gone.
However, I am immensely happy to report that I did something that I don’t do very often: I was wrong. In my first impressions, I stated that Strand was very, very fun, but due to its long cooldowns and close-range nature, I thought it would struggle to find endgame viability. I’m happy to report that Strand subclasses have not only survived the endgame test, but thrived in difficult environments. Using the right builds with some of the new exotics and weapons (Some of which can be found here) can turn Strand into an absolute wrecking ball in the right situations, and I encourage anyone to try it out.
Destiny 2: Lightfall- PvP and Side Modes
Lightfall still unfortunately suffers from a lot of the same struggles that have plagued Destiny for years now. If you only play Destiny for PvP, don’t even bother. Crucible still feels very neglected and at this point, apart from Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris, I just pretend that this game doesn’t even have PvP. Gambit has been improved with loot drops and a faster pace, but it still hasn’t gotten a new map in close to 2 years. However, I did like the difficulty changes made to other activities, specifically Vanguard Ops. They feel much better and more engaging with the increased difficulty.
Destiny 2: Lightfall Review- Root of Nightmares Raid
As always, the raid is so integral to my Destiny experience that it gets its own section. I have positive things to say about the raid… mostly. First of all, this is the most impressive raid artistically full stop, maybe only getting some competition from Last Wish. Nezerac’s overgrown pyramid ship is absolutely stunning to look at. Exploring it day 1 was, as always, an absolute treat. The new weapons and armor look and play great, with a special shoutout to the Rufus’ Fury auto rifle and the Warlock chestpiece being my personal favorites, although I don’t have the raid’s exotic weapon yet.
As for encounters, this is where the wheels kind of start to fall apart for me. Lets get positive out of the way; I think overall, the raid is pretty good overall, with the Explicator encounter being a very big highlight. But this comes into my main problem with the raid; Its too damn easy. For being what is supposed to be the premiere piece of endgame content, I would’ve really liked to see some more complicated mechanic encounters, especially the first 2. The first 2 encounters are so easy if you know what you’re doing that you can essentially 2 man them. The rest of the team being relegated to killing enemies is pretty lame in my opinion. I’ll enjoy running this raid, but for the next expansion I do think Bungie has to crank the difficulty up. Especially considering where we are in the story.
Destiny 2: Lightfall Review- Conclusion
If you noticed a bit of a trend where I said that the stuff that has always been good about Destiny continues to be good with Lightfall, and the content that has been needing improvement still needs improvement, then you’d be right. I could go into a bunch of the smaller changes made, and the intricacies of the new weapons. But at the end of the day, if you enjoy Destiny or think you’d enjoy Destiny, you’ll probably enjoy Lightfall.
If you don’t already enjoy Destiny or don’t think you would, then yeah, there’s not much here for you. Its both a blessing and a curse. The old adage of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is strained here. Yes, Destiny 2 is great and I love it, so I’ll continue to play it. However, its undeniable that some parts of it need some reworking and improvement, or need to just be abandoned entirely so Bungie can focus on other aspects. Looking at you, Crucible.
Destiny 2: Lightfall was released on Xbox, Playstation and Steam on February 28th, 2023. Be on the lookout for a raid and new player guide here soon as I dive even deeper into Lightfall.
